


the fear complex

by constantblur



Series: the classified katsuki/nikiforov files [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, M/M, Victor gets kidnapped, yuri does Not freak out about it okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 15:45:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14855594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constantblur/pseuds/constantblur
Summary: Victor leans back against the wall and watches as Yuri checks his stance, lifts his gun, and empties the chamber into the paper target. He waits until Yuri lowers his earmuffs before saying, "Sloppy."Yuri spares him a cool glance before he turns and flicks the switch, drawing the paper target forward. Yuri pulls it from its fastenings and holds it up, looking at Victor through the bullet holes clustered right in the center. "You were saying?"





	the fear complex

**Author's Note:**

> welp. i guess this is a series now. much more to come in this au!! (probably. i have So Many ideas but also i need to stop coming up with ideas for this au and focus on my other big fic projects hfhksljdhdf.)
> 
> it's probably not terribly necessary to read the first fic in the series before reading this one, but i'd have to recommend reading in order for the Full Experience. and later additions probably will require reading earlier works since i will be attempting at least a vague thread of plot throughout these tiny indulgences in spy au-ing.

The first thing Victor notices when he wakes up is that his mouth tastes like pennies.

He runs a hand through his hair, groaning. He let himself get taken out in such a pedestrian way. Agent Victor Nikiforov, _chloroformed_. How embarrassing.

The next thing he notices is that whoever had been clever enough to drug him hadn't been clever enough to take his shoes.

Twenty-two minutes later, Victor strolls down the street with his hands in his pockets, whistling cheerfully. Being kidnapped wasn't so bad after all; it was certainly more convenient for his targets to bring him straight to them rather than the long game he'd been prepared to play of drawing them out. Perhaps he can pretend in his report that it had been his plan all along.

He'll have to include a special thanks to Agent Katsuki. He's generally happy to do so, but this time the thought makes Victor pout a bit childishly. Yuri won't brag or make smug comments, but he'll get this _look_ that will get his point across all the same. Fine; Victor grudgingly has to admit the man is a genius. Terrifying and an absolute oddball (honestly, who would think to hide back-up hardware—including, but not limited to, a lock pick, switchblade, stun gas, and a very tiny but very powerful explosive—in the heels of his Gucci Queercore boots). But a genius. The problem is that Yuri is all too _aware_ of this fact, and indifferently tramples all over any arguments Victor tries to make about not wanting a little bomb on his foot that could blow it off at any moment.

But, fine. Katsuki wins this round.

Victor comes to a stop at the street corner, peering idly around at the street signs and shop windows and couples walking their dogs. It gives off a _we all know our neighbors' names and get together for Sunday brunch at the local church_ vibe, the small-town intimacy and repose that says nothing exciting ever happens here. Certainly a strange area to hold a government agent captive in, but much preferred to many of the other locales Victor has woken up in.

With an air of supreme unconcern, Victor says, "Where am I?"

 

 

Victor barters away his (emptied out, can't go around arming civilians) Gucci boots for a car that runs on prayers and a continuous chant of, "Come on, baby, keep going, you can do it." He could have just swiped any car—and a better one, at that—but he can't find it in him to steal from such quaint folk. It's not their fault that the deadliest terrorist organization in the world has a safe house just down the block from their flower shop.

He gets as far as he can persuade the little old car to go—almost 70 miles, which is about 50 miles more than Victor had predicted—before parking it to rest in peace and hopping over to a telephone booth. He almost collapses to the floor in despair as he realizes he has no change, but remembers a little trick Mila taught him to get the phone to ignore the lack of payment. The dial tone thankfully starts humming in his ear and Victor proceeds to punch in a number he really shouldn't use on a public payphone, but he's rather limited on options right now.

"Code in," a stoic voice intones.

" _Avos'_ ," Victor says.

"Hold," the voice says, and when the line goes quiet, Victor leans against the glass with a sigh, hoping they actually put him on hold and didn't accidentally hang up the phone.

About four minutes pass before Victor hears a click on the line. "Nikiforov."

"Ah, Agent Katsuki," Victor purrs. "A pleasure."

"Your tracker went offline almost three days ago," Yuri says expressionlessly. "We assumed you were dead."

"Oh, they managed to disable it? I hadn't even noticed," Victor says. He can't really bring himself to feign concern. To be honest, he hates when he gets stuck with a tracker. It's just a little _much_. He isn't very sorry at all for its loss. "Well, a minor hiccup in the grand scheme of things. Everything else has been going swimmingly, as usual. Surely you didn't lose faith in me so easily, darling," Victor teases.

"We lost your signal. You didn't make contact. Attempts to ping off your phone or any of its last known locations failed, surveillance camera footage revealed nothing, no other agents could confirm your status or last known whereabouts. Three days, Victor."

Yuri's voice sounds strangely tight. "Yuri," Victor says carefully.

"I didn't lose faith in you, I just couldn't _find_ you," Yuri says.

Oh. "Yuri—"

"Shut up," Yuri says.

" _Yuri_ —"

"I am not overreacting," Yuri talks over him. "I'm not emotionally compromised. It's perfectly normal to worry about an agent that's been lost in the field."

Victor smiles gently against the receiver. "Yes. Perfectly normal."

"And you're my partner. Partners are supposed to be—I don't know, protective, or invested, or whatever."

"Good partners are."

"Exactly." Victor hears three long, deep breaths before a quiet voice continues: "No one goes after Whisper and lives."

"Until now," Victor says firmly.

"Right," Yuri says hollowly. "Agent Nikiforov never fails."

"Exactly!" Victor crows.

It's silent for a long moment that fills Victor with tension, and then Yuri lets out a sigh and says, "You're a madman," but Victor can hear that familiar deprecating quirk to his lips.

"Two peas in a pod, sweetheart," Victor says. "But clearly our madness has been serving us well so far."

Victor hears the smile get wider. "You used the boots?"

"The boots saved my life," Victor says, a bit more heartfelt than he'd intended.

"Well." Worth it, for how flustered Yuri sounds. "That was the point."

"I am happily in your debt," Victor says. He isn't at all subtle about his meaning when he adds, "I'm sure you can think of some creative form of payback by the time I make it back to headquarters."

"Where are you, Victor?" Yuri says, ignoring Victor's generous offer. "When we couldn't find you in Moldova, we widened the search range. I've had agents all over Western Europe looking for you."

"Ah, well, interesting story," Victor says. "I think I'm in New Zealand."

 

 

Victor's on a flight back to headquarters less than three hours after his conversation with Yuri, and after only sleeping about four of the twenty or so hours he's on the plane, he gets promptly escorted to a debriefing room to explain in excruciating detail every event and word exchanged leading up to and following his capture.

He admits that by the end of it, even _he's_ feeling a bit wrung out. But sleep comes as a faraway second on his list of things to do next.

Victor tracks Yuri down to the gun range. Not where he'd expected to find him; Katsuki is never far from a computer monitor, ready to pull up any information or track any signal with a few taps at the keyboard his hands seem permanently glued to. But it's not surprising either. Katsuki's career is starting to take him out of the operations room; he's been out with Victor in the field a few times since HQ, having decided long ago that Nikiforov's record as a solo agent could only be outdone by a partnered-up Nikiforov, declared a Katsuki/Nikiforov partnership trial. The spymasters saw potential in the fact that Victor, for once, hadn't had anything negative to say in his report about partnering up with someone on a mission, and were quick to capitalize on it.

Victor has certain _standards_ , all right? Most other agents aren't in tune with him enough; they just slow him down. Working the casino mission with Yuri though . . .

Yuri doesn't seem to have quite decided yet if he's grateful to have been promoted or pissed at Victor for getting him booted into field work. Victor isn't even sure if Yuri had ever wanted to be put in the field; he's a tech genius and might have been happily counting on staying deskbound for the entirety of his career. But he's been taking the partnership in stride and, apart from some snappy and sarcastic comments here and there, Yuri hasn't expressed any desire to be released from it. He trains hard and follows Victor on missions without complaint and even listens to Victor's orders. Most of the time.

Victor leans back against the wall and watches as Yuri checks his stance, lifts his gun, and empties the chamber into the paper target. He waits until Yuri lowers his earmuffs before saying, "Sloppy."

Yuri spares him a cool glance before he turns and flicks the switch, drawing the paper target forward. Yuri pulls it from its fastenings and holds it up, looking at Victor through the bullet holes clustered right in the center. "You were saying?"

Victor grins and saunters forward. "Now, now," he chastises, "perfect aim is no excuse to ignore _finesse_."

Yuri groans and tosses the target aside. "It can never just be a simple 'good job' from you, can it?"

"No, I suppose not," Victor says as he slides into the space right before Yuri. He strokes a hand down Yuri's cheek, catching his chin between his fingers as he leans forward, hovers with his lips an inch away from Yuri's. "You've come so far in such a short time," he says, voice low and sensuous. "I'm amazed by you every day. You'll have your first solo mission in no time."

Victor moves to lean in that last inch, but Yuri's hands press against his chest and push him away. "Not here," Yuri says. Which is a pretty funny hang-up to have because the gun range might very well be one of the last places at HQ where they haven't made out or had some pleasant mutual orgasms.

But, fine. Victor steps back and smoothly rearranges his features so he doesn't look like he's just been rejected. Which he wasn't, obviously, Yuri's just suddenly conscious about propriety, or the lack of locks, or something. "New Zealand was charming," Victor says, just to say something.

"Tell me," Yuri says vehemently. "Tell me what happened."

"Well, there was a delightful couple who invited me to come over for tea to look at their crystal fairy collection—"

"Victor."

Perhaps sleep shouldn't have been such a faraway second on the list.

But if Victor's being honest with himself, he knew Yuri would demand a rehash of everything Victor had just discussed with his superiors, and he chose to go to him anyway.

So Victor once again strolls through the story of his sudden and embarrassing capture, his escape thanks to some idiot genius's insistence on armed boots, and the interrogation he performed on the Whisper member he generously kept alive until all his questions were answered. Victor tells Yuri everything he learned about Whisper; they're partners, he should know everything Victor knows.

Following that line of logic, Victor also tells Yuri that, while the spymasters are currently holding off on acting on his information, Victor will be expected to go after Whisper again. He's already been somewhat compromised so it's a risk some of the spymasters are reluctant to take, but Victor's also the only living agent they've got that has managed to get so close to the organization. They need him to keep hunting, but not until they've decided on the opportune moment to hunt.

"Well," Yuri says after a long pause, "next time you won't botch the job so badly because I'll be there, of course."

Victor blinks at Yuri in surprise, though honestly, he should've expected this. "Yuri—"

"Did they give you any idea of how long we've got? I think I'm making good progress in my training, but the more time they could give me would, obviously, be ideal."

"Yuri . . . "

"I'll be ready no matter what though," Yuri says fiercely. "You know that, right? I've got your back, Victor."

Victor is fairly certain he's never suffered such severe heart palpitations before, even when he spent four days living in the dusty walls of a known assassin's safe house and was constantly one sneeze away from discovery. "I know that," Victor says. "I trust you, Yuri, absolutely. But"—oh, this is hard to say—"you won't be going with me."

"Yes, I will," Yuri says. It's a classic Katsuki move: nonchalantly batting away any comment he doesn't agree with.

Victor wants to just concede—it wouldn't be so bad, would it, to sit before the spymasters and shrug as he explains, _Yuri's coming with me because he wouldn't take no for an answer_ —but Victor knows he can't. This isn't a mission Yuri's ready for, or will be ready for any time within the next two years at the absolute minimum. Hell, Victor isn't sure he's ready for it; he's certainly not going to bring anyone else along for a probable suicide mission, least of all a rookie.

"I'll be going on this one alone," Victor tries again.

"You will not—"

"You don't have the experience," Victor bluntly cuts in.

"That's the whole point of all _this_ ," Yuri bursts out, arm sweeping out to encompass the gun range. "That's why I'm down here twice a day, and in the simulator every night. That's why I'm a walking bruise from training for four hours a day with Otabek, why I've been studying so many languages with Christophe I'm not even sure which one I'm speaking in right now, why Sara's had me out on all sorts of bizarre assignments like doing a complete recon on the blue-haired barista so I could accurately predict where she'd be at precisely 1:42 PM on Thursday, and rearranging the entire Valentine's Day display at the supermarket without anyone catching on. That's why I've been reading mission reports until the words start swimming on the page.

"I know I have a long way to go, but I'm _trying_. I'm trying to catch up to you." Yuri blows out a frustrated breath. "I'm your partner. That means something. I should be with you."

"Yes," Victor says. "And you will be, when you're ready." He reaches out and takes Yuri's shoulders in a firm grip, pulling him in until they're half an arms-length away. "You really have come so far, Yuri. But you are not ready for something like Whisper." With a gentle, soothing touch, he skims his hands down Yuri's arms, circling his hands just above Yuri's elbows. "You will be with me for many other missions. But not this one. I won't bring you into something this dangerous unless I know I can keep you safe."

"And how am I supposed to keep _you_ safe if you leave me behind?" Yuri snarls, knocking Victor's arms away. "Partners, Victor. We're supposed to watch out for each other. You didn't take me with you to Moldova, and look what—" He bites off the words, looking away with his fists clenched.

"Yes, look what happened," Victor says, nodding. "Even from thousands of miles away, you kept me safe."

"Don't—that's not what—"

"Oh?" Victor feigns extreme shock. "Then to whom should I have given credit for weaponizing my Gucci boots? I'll have to update my report. How embarrassing, I thought it was you I had that half hour argument with about shoelaces that could double as razor floss."

"Victor."

"Yuri." Victor tries his best to match Yuri's stubborn look, but no one pulls off stubborn like Yuri Katsuki.

Yuri manages to keep up the glare for another minute, and then, abruptly, his hard look collapses into something—not quite fragile, not quite frightened, but not far off from either. "I feel useless," Yuri says.

"Preposterous," Victor says.

"Is it? I'm supposed to be your partner, but I've hardly done a thing in that capacity."

Victor gives an exasperated sigh and brings his hands back to Yuri's shoulders. "You are being monumentally ridiculous," he says. "Who was it that broke into the Chalmont with me and helped me find the cypher that led me to Moldova in the first place? Who decoded that cypher? Hell, who was it that even managed to figure out the Chalmont was one of Whisper's fronts?"

Victor wants to shake Yuri, mostly because Yuri seems intent to not look him in the eye while Victor's making some very good points. "You've already done more to help take down a terrorist organization in the last few months than most agents have in their entire careers. Not to mention you've learned more in the past few months than I learned in my entire first year of training. You've been impressing a lot of people around here, and rattling up a lot more that know they're about to be surpassed by a rookie."

Yuri exhales slowly. "And what does any of that matter," he says, "if I can't be there for you when it really counts?"

Victor isn't sure if he wants to sigh again or laugh at that classic Katsuki stubbornness, so he makes a strange noise that doesn't count as either and sags forward until his forehead is against Yuri's. "You are impossible," he murmurs.

"I have a job to do," Yuri says. "I'm just trying to do it."

"You are," Victor says. "You're the only one who doesn't think so."

And finally, some of the tension drains out of Yuri. "I just . . . "

"I know," Victor says.

They stay like that, forehead to forehead, eyes closed, breathing quietly in the space between them. Victor would quite easily admit that he'd be all right spending the rest of the night like this—the rest of the week, the rest of the year, the rest of . . .

"When will you be going?" Yuri asks in an almost-whisper.

"Not for some time, I should think," Victor says. "You'll have time to arm a new pair of boots for me. Maybe create a wristwatch that will make me immune to chloroform, or turn one of my Armani suits into a literal suit of armor."

Yuri snorts. "Now there's some ideas." He brings a hand to Victor's hip, finger tracing idle circles just above the waistband of Victor's pants. "Don't get yourself killed yet, Nikiforov," he says quietly. "You've just started to become a tolerable partner. I'd hate to have to break in another one."

There's nothing straightforward about them or anything they do, and this thing between them—this fragile, volatile, unnamed thing—is no exception. And yet sometimes, despite the layers they wrap around every word and every action . . . sometimes this feels like the most straightforward thing of all.

"Shame there's no kissing in the gun range," Victor says. "It would be nice to be able to kiss you right now."

"Well," Yuri says, breath coming just a little bit faster, "I suppose there's no reason you can't, considering all the other places you've already debased."

"Slander," Victor says. "Any room that has witnessed my kiss is sacred."

"I know this will be infinitely difficult for you," Yuri says, "but try to not make me regret doing this." And then he's up on the balls of his feet, pressing his mouth to Victor's.

Victor automatically moves into it, needing to be closer, kiss deeper. He's drawn into the heat of Yuri's body in an almost Pavlovian response, and Victor's lips curl up in faint amusement.

Something about this entire game is rigged: Yuri has him in permanent checkmate.

**Author's Note:**

> me: all right guys don't get too schmoopy you're not even an actual couple yet  
> victuri: fuck you we are SCHMOOPING
> 
> i'm c&p-ing directly from wikipedia here, but _avos'_ is a russian word meaning: _a philosophy of behavior, or attitude, of a person who ignores possible problems or hassles and, at the same time, expects or hopes for no negative results or consequences._
> 
> aaaand here's my [twitter](https://twitter.com/constantblur_)


End file.
